There’s a quiet beauty in living an ordinary life
I’m getting old.
And it’s wonderful.
I turned 59 this year. I’m a grandpa. I look in the mirror and see lines that weren’t there a year ago. I have grey whiskers. I’m still athletic, but not like I used to be. Arthritis has settled into my hands, and I’m not as fast as I was. I no longer school teenagers on the basketball court. These days, I settle for squeaking out a win against a sixty-year-old in pickleball.
It’s humbling.
And it’s wonderful.
My body has changed and so has my mind.
I’m not who I was.
I used to want it all—the fast life, the big lights, the noise. I chased the New York hustle with everything I had. Celebrities, pressure, excitement. I changed jobs a dozen times because nothing ever felt like enough. Not enough money. Not enough prestige. Not enough something.
But I’ve changed.
I used to mock small towns—the one stoplight, the little diner with a daily special, the pumpkin festival on the square. I needed bigger. I needed more.
Not anymore.
Somewhere along the way, the ordinary became extraordinary.
Last year, I had to go to Los Angeles for business. L.A. is packed with incredible things to do—shows, sports, restaurants, something on every corner. Do you know what I planned?
A fish dinner to go.
I took it to a long pier overlooking the Pacific. I sat there for hours, alone, eating my cod, watching fishermen pull in their catches. Couples strolled by hand-in-hand, eating ice cream. I didn’t need anything else. I watched the sun melt into the horizon and surfers carve through the last waves of the day.
I sat and watched it all like a movie.
The truth is, we weren’t designed for the lives we’re living. We wake up and immediately flood our brains with more information in 20 minutes than our grandparents absorbed in a month. A constant drip of noise, outrage, opinion, and heartbreak. We can, in a few clicks, watch a young woman get stabbed on a train, a man with an opinion get assassinated with a single bullet, or a mother scream into a camera because her child didn’t walk out of school that day.
It’s all just a click away.
And we scroll on.
Aren’t our own lives hard enough? What makes us think we can carry the weight of the world’s heartache too? Maybe this is your call to reconnect with people, with purpose, with peace.
That’s where I am.
I’ve stopped chasing everything.
And the slower I move, the more I notice.
I’m not who I was.
I’m older.
And it’s wonderful.
